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Iraq War has prevented more from being done to aid Arab Spring, especially in Syria

I was living in Syria when the statues of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq came toppling down.

Saddam, who had arrogantly had his name inscribed on bricks at the ancient city of Babylon, did not expect his rule to end so abruptly, so humiliatingly. And at the University of Damascus, students told me that they expected Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to fall soon, too. They were not alone.

With 250,000 U.S. troops amassed in Iraq in 2003, George W. Bush's White House had contemplated rolling American tanks into the Syrian capital. The Middle East was to be reshaped in the image of American democracy. But events in Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea distracted the Pentagon, and the "democratic domino theory" did not come to pass.

Ed Husain

Ten years after Iraq, did the war give birth to the Arab Spring?

Yes, the Iraq War had indirect connections to the Arab uprisings that swept the Middle East and northern Africa in 2011. For one, the fall of Saddam must have psychologically empowered Arab opposition activists who saw that a Ba'thist dictator and his sons could be removed from power.

But it is a mistake to suggest that Arabs across the region were directly inspired by the fall of Saddam -- if that were true, they would have risen a decade ago. Why wait until 2011? The answer is that other, more direct developments led to the ongoing Arab revolutions.

First, in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 atrocities, Arab governments used the ensuing "war on terror" to quell domestic dissent. When opposition Islamist parties questioned the legitimacy of Arab dictators, they were portrayed as al Qaeda sympathizers to the West, and their imprisonment in Cairo or Riyadh or Tripoli didn't raise international eyebrows.

The violence of radical Islamists failed to topple strongmen in Egypt and Syria in the 1960s and 1980s. And once again, from 2001 to 2011, government repression of less radical, nonviolent Islamists signalled to a younger generation of Arabs that Islamism could not overthrow autocratic regimes.

100 moments from the Iraq War 100 photos

100 moments from the Iraq War100 photos

U.S. Marines in northern Kuwait gear up after receiving orders to cross the Iraqi border on March 20, 2003. It has been 10 years since the American-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. Look back at moments from the war and the legacy it left behind. For more, view CNN's complete coverage of the Iraq War anniversary.

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A pedestrian looks at front-page headlines on display outside the future site of the Newseum in Washington on March 20, 2003.

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Smoke and flames rise from the riverside presidential palace compound in Baghdad after a massive airstrike on March 21, 2003.

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President George W. Bush meets with his war council in the Situation Room of the White House on March 21, 2003. Clockwise from foreground: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, Chief of Staff Andy Card, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers were present.

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A U.S. Marine from Task Force Tarawa engages Iraqi forces from an armored assault vehicle on March 23, 2003, in the southern city of Nasiriyah.

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Marines walk single-file through the desolate landscape in Nasiriyah on March 26, 2003. As night falls on the city, the troops are on alert for a counterattack.

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A night-vision image shows U.S. military personnel carrying Pfc. Jessica Lynch off a helicopter on April 1, 2003, at an undisclosed location in Iraq. She had been missing since March 23, when she and members of her unit were ambushed by Iraqi forces.

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Members of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, storm Diyala Bridge in Baghdad on April 7, 2003.

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Marines pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein, a symbolic finale to the fall of Baghdad, on April 9, 2003.

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Iraqis flee Baghdad on April 11, 2003, as the capital city descended into chaos with widespread looting and lawlessness.

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Marines hold a memorial service for friends killed in a battle weeks earlier on April 13, 2003, near Al-Kut, Iraq.

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Iraqi National Museum Deputy Director Mushin Hasan sits among destroyed artifacts on April 13, 2003, in Bagdhad. The museum was severely looted.

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Iraqi men push the head of a statue of Saddam Hussein after its destruction on April 18, 2003, in Baghdad.

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Dressed in a flight suit, President Bush meets pilots and crew members of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln who were returning to the United States on May 1, 2003, after being deployed in the Gulf region.

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Sailors applaud as President Bush addresses the nation aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. Standing beneath a banner that read "Mission Accomplished," the president declared major fighting over in Iraq and called it a victory in the ongoing war on terrorism.

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A U.S. Marine pulls down a picture of Saddam Hussein at a school in Al-Kut on April 16, 2003.

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Iraqi men check a list near the remains of bodies excavated from a mass grave on the outskirts of Al Musayyib on May 31, 2003. Locals said they uncovered the remains of hundreds of Shiite Muslims allegedly executed by Saddam Hussein's regime after their uprising following the 1991 Gulf War.

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U.S. Army 101st Airborne troops investigate a house where Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were killed in Mosul, Iraq, on July 23, 2003. The house, in an affluent neighborhood, was the scene of a fierce gunbattle.

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Army Cpl. Curtis Laymon of the 101st Airborne Rakkasan regiment is reflected in a pool of oil from the Iraqi-Turkey pipeline in Iraq's Ninewa province on October 29, 2003. The pipeline was blown apart by saboteurs two weeks earlier.

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An Iraqi police lieutenant's stars lie in a puddle of blood after a car bombing that targeted a police station in Baquba on November 22, 2003.

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A construction worker removes debris from a destroyed building in Baghdad on December 11, 2003.

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Saddam Hussein's picture is taken December 14, 2003, after his capture a day earlier. U.S. troops found Hussein hiding near his hometown of Tikrit.

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The entrance to the "spider hole" where Saddam Hussein was hiding in Ad Dawr is seen from the inside on December 15, 2003.

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A bound Iraqi informer, with his name inked in English across his back, crouches beside soldiers in the 4th Infantry Division after providing outdated information during a morning raid in in Samarra on December 19, 2003.

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Eman Mohammed, 7, stands in the Kurdish refugee camp in Kirkuk on January 7, 2004. Since 2003, thousands of internally displaced Kurds have returned to Kirkuk.

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Laborers work on a hotel in Baghdad on January 15, 2004.

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A worker turns a valve at the Shirawa oil field outside the northern city of Kirkuk on January 19, 2004. The security of Iraq's oil infrastructure had improved, but exports through the region's main pipeline had yet to resume.

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A boy stands at the scene of a car bombing in front of the Shaheen Hotel in Baghdad on January 28, 2004.

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Mourners carry coffins in Karbala on March 3, 2004. A day after a series of bombs killed dozens and injured hundreds during the Ashura ceremony in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, Shiite Muslims began burying their dead.

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Iraqi insurgents wave their national flag as they celebrate in front of a burning U.S. military tanker they hit with rocket-propelled grenade on April 9, 2004. The attack took place on the road from Baghdad to Fallujah.

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Photographs depicting detainee abuse inside Abu Ghraib prison at the hands of U.S. troops were released in late April 2004. The fallout was immediate, and the images gave anti-war protesters ammunition to rally people to their cause.

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Iraqis look at rows of graves at an overflowing cemetery built in a soccer arena in Fallujah on May 3, 2004.

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At home in Baghdad with his new prosthetic leg, Ahsan Hameed, 20, sits while his aunt looks it over on July 17, 2004. He lost his left leg above the knee to a stray bullet in April.

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Construction workers weld beams at the Ministry of Transportation building in Baghdad on July 21, 2004. The building was being rebuilt after it was gutted by a fire.

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Iraqi national guardsman Ridha Abdulkarim lies in a hospital bed after a car bomb detonated at a checkpoint in Baquba on August 3, 2004. The bomb killed six guardsmen and wounded six others, Iraqi authorities said.

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Shiite militia members prepare to fire during clashes with U.S. forces in Najaf on August 7, 2004. It was the third day of continuous fighting in the holy city.

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An Iraqi militia member injured in a U.S. airstrike in Najaf is assisted by one of his comrades on August 24, 2004. They were walking past the shrine of Imam Ali to make their way to a militia hospital.

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Iraqi Shiite faithful gather in Najaf on August 27, 2004, to mark the end of a battle. Rebel leader Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his fighters to lay down their arms in a peace deal brokered by Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

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Anti-war protesters in New York carry mock coffins draped with U.S. flags on August 29, 2004. Thousands took part in demonstrations outside Madison Square Garden on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

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Members of the Iraqi Intervention Forces listen to last-minute instructions before heading out with U.S. troops to begin a major offensive on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah on November 8, 2004.

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Marines search houses in Fallujah for insurgents on November 10, 2004.

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Marines rest and check a map in a house during an offensive in Fallujah on November 11, 2004.

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Iraqi men are arrested during a house raid in Fallujah on November 13, 2004.

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Marines take position on a roof in the restive city of Fallujah on November 13, 2004.

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U.S. Army medics treat a wounded Jordanian fighter in Fallujah on November 14, 2004.

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A U.S. Marine and a soldier from the New Iraqi Army process a detainee during operations in Fallujah on November 17, 2004.

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Marines use explosives to open rooftop doors while searching houses in Fallujah for insurgents on November 22, 2004.

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Marines clear a home in Fallujah after four insurgents staged a bloody counterattack, killing one American and wounding many others, on November 23, 2004.

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Spc. Franklin Smith pulls away as a mortar blast is fired from the edge of the U.S. airbase in Tal Afar on January 17, 2005. U.S. teams would frequently fire "harassment and interdiction" mortar fusillades toward suspected enemy positions.

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Iraqis look over their ballots on election day in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad on January 30, 2005. It was the country's first multiparty election in half a century.

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Election officials count ballot papers at night on January 30, 2005, in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Despite threats, thousands of men and women cast their votes.

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Army Sgt. 1st Class Troy Hawkins is tended to after getting wounded during a firefight while on patrol with an Iraqi army unit in the Haifa Street neighborhood of Baghdad on February 16, 2005. Afterward, he continued to fight in the narrow streets.

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An Iraqi soldier stands watch at a teahouse while on patrol with U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on February 23, 2005.

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President Bush shakes hands with former Sen. Charles Robb, left, and Judge Laurence Silberman during a news conference in Washington on March 31, 2005. The co-chairmen of the Iraqi Intelligence Commission issued a report indicating that U.S. intelligence agencies were wrong in most pre-war assessments about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

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Iraqi Shiite demonstrators loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr burn a U.S. flag during a protest in Baghdad on April 9, 2005. The rally was called on the second anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, with protesters demanding an end to the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

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People gather at the scene of a car bombing near a busy market in eastern Baghdad on May, 12, 2005.

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A resident makes a phone call in the aftermath of a double suicide car bombing that struck civilians living near the blast walls that protect the Hamra Hotel in Baghdad on November 18, 2005.

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Sgt. Thomas Gaines kisses his wife during a welcome-home ceremony in Fort Stewart, Georgia, on May 11, 2006. About 280 members of the Georgia National Guard 48th Brigade returned home from a year-long deployment to Iraq.

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A British Royal Air Force gunner waves to a goat herder during a patrol of northern Basra province on July 26, 2006.

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A British armored vehicle is illuminated by traffic during a patrol of Basra on July 27, 2006.

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Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein addresses the court during his trial in the heavily fortified Green Zone of Baghdad on October 17, 2006. Hussein and six co-defendants were on trial for mass killings in the Anfal campaign against Kurdish rebels in the late 1980s.

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A Palestinian woman watches the news of Saddam Hussein's execution at her home in the West Bank town of Jenin on December 30, 2006. Hussein was hanged for his role in the 1982 Dujail massacre, in which 148 Iraqis were killed after a failed assassination attempt against the then-president.

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U.S. Marines prepare for a military operation at Camp Ramadi in Anbar province on January 14, 2007.

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American forces in Ramadi watch President Bush deliver the annual State of the Union address on January 24, 2007. The president announced plans to increase the size of the U.S. military by 92,000 troops.

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An American Apache helicopter provides air support while a Marine takes aim after being fired upon by insurgents near the Euphrates River in Ramadi on February 2, 2007.

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Iraqi children watch U.S. Army soldiers climb to the roof of their school to get a high vantage point in Baghdad on April 15, 2007.

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U.S. Marines sleep at their patrol base in the area known as Zaidon in Al Anbar province on May 12, 2007.

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Mary McHugh mourns her fiance, Sgt. James Regan, at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington on May 27, 2007. The American Special Forces soldier was killed by an IED in Iraq in February.

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U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi contractor build a concrete wall between Sunni and Shiite areas of the south Dora neighborhood of Bagdhad in the early hours of July 4, 2007.

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Iraqi army commandos teach junior soldiers during a combat training course in Baquba on July 18, 2007.

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Medics treat Army Spc. Jose Callazo after his mine-detecting vehicle hit a buried IED in Hawr Rajab on August 4, 2007.

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An American soldier prepares to search a home for illegal weapons in the Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad on September 9, 2007.

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Relatives help an Iraqi man at a hospital in Baghdad on September 20, 2007. He was injured when Blackwater security contractors opened fire on civilians on September 16, killing 17. The company lost its contract to guard U.S. staff in Iraq after the country's government refused to renew its operating license.

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Army Brig. Gen. Nolen V. Bivens presents an American flag to Maribel Ferrero during the funeral of her 23-year-old son, Army Pfc. Marius L. Ferrero, in Miami. He was killed by a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq.

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A U.S. soldier blindfolds an Iraqi man during a raid in Mukhisa on December 3, 2007. Seven men were detained after multiple assault rifles were found in the house.

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U.S. soldiers sit in a home damaged by fighting in Baghdad on March 11, 2008, near the five-year anniversary of the war.

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Commanding Gen. David Petraeus, center, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on April 8, 2008. In reporting on the success of the surge in Iraq, Petraeus said the number of U.S. troops in the country should not drop below 140,000.

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A U.S. soldier with 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, stands on a kiln overlooking more than 150 brick factories in Narwan on July 1, 2008.

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A boy looks out from his family shelter at a Narwan brick factory on July 1, 2008.

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama flies over Baghdad with Gen. David Petraeus during a tour on July 21, 2008.

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Maj. Gen. John Kelly, left, and Anbar province Gov. Maamoun Sami Rashid al-Alwani sign papers during a handover ceremony in Ramadi on September 1, 2008. The U.S. military turned over security control of Iraq's biggest province, once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency.

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Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki tries to block a shoe thrown at President Bush during a news conference in Baghdad on December 14, 2008. The Iraqi journalist who threw the shoes missed the president but could be heard yelling in Arabic, "This is a farewell ... you dog!"

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Pfc. Jeremy Tomlinson, who was wounded a year before in Iraq, waits with fellow soldiers to greet returning comrades in Fort Carson, Colorado, on January 28, 2008. About 3,800 soldiers were coming home after a 15-month tour of duty.

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A poll worker helps a member of the Iraqi National Police cast his ballot in Baghdad on January 28, 2009. Polls were opened early to members of the Iraqi security services, many of whom would be working during the provincial elections.

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An Iraqi soldier searches a boy at a polling station in Baghdad on January 31, 2009. People across the country voted to fill 440 provincial council seats.

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President Barack Obama delivers an address on February 27, 2009, at the largest Marine post on the East Coast, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. In his speech, Obama outlined plans for the gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq.

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Iraqi army special forces patrol Baghdad's al-Fadel district on March 30, 2009. U.S.-backed Iraqi forces clashed with anti-al-Qaeda militants known as the Awakening Council, or Sahwa, after fighting erupted following the arrest of Adel Mashhadani, a Sahwa leader.

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A U.S. Air Force team carries a flag-draped transfer case containing the remains of Army Spc. Omar M. Albrak of Chicago at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on May 12, 2009, just over a month after the U.S. government lifted its ban on media coverage of the returning war dead. Albrak was killed while serving in Iraq.

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Army Sgt. Donald Lewis from the 1st Cavalry Division is greeted by his wife, Nicole Lewis, after his brigade arrived home in Fort Hood, Texas, on November 10, 2009, after a year of deployment in Iraq.

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Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaks with soldiers at a forward operating base in Kirkuk on December 11, 2009.

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An Iraqi woman votes in parliamentary elections in Kirkuk on March 7, 2010.

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U.S. soldiers salute during a handover ceremony of the entry points of Baghdad's Green Zone, now referred to as the International Zone, to Iraqi control inside the heavily fortified compound in Baghdad on June 1, 2010.

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A string of bullets lies across photographs of women adorning the armor of a Stryker vehicle north of Jalaulah on June 11, 2010.

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An Iraqi explosives expert gets into a special suit for bomb disposal during a training session organized by his U.S. counterparts at the Warhorse military base near the restive city of Baquba on August 17, 2010.

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Shiite worshipers pray during an Ashura commemoration ceremony at the Kadhimiya shrine in Baghdad on December 6, 2011. Ashura marks the death of Prophet Mohammed's grandson, the revered Imam Hussein.

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A technician works on a prosthetic at a factory in Baghdad on December 13, 2011. Iraqis have faced a shortage of prosthetics due to a spike in war-related injuries over the years.

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Iraqis gather at a women's art exhibition in a posh Baghdad neighborhood on December 14, 2011.

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Gen. Lloyd Austin retires the United States Forces-Iraq flag during a casing ceremony at the former Sather Air Base in Baghdad on December 15, 2011.

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Military personnel lower their heads during the flag casing ceremony in Baghdad on December 15, 2011. The ceremony officially marked the end of U.S. military operations in Iraq.

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A U.S. soldier prepares to fly out of the Sather Air Base in Baghdad on December 15, 2011. The last U.S. forces left Iraq and entered Kuwait on December 18, nearly nine years after launching a divisive war to oust Saddam Hussein.

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Second, as the "war on terror" unfolded, Islamists continued to fail in their decades-long pursuit to gain political office, and the widespread corruption and nepotism of regimes in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt sunk deeper, US support for Arab dictatorships also came into question.

Then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put it best in June 2005: "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither."

These were not just empty words. The U.S. government identified civil society organizations and financially supported NGOs through the "democracy promotion" agenda. During the Bush administration, annual funding for these programs exceeded the total amount spent on such programs in the entire decade to 2001, according to the 2009 budget report from the Project on Middle East Democracy.

Funding for the mostly secular democracy activists was bolstered by the training provided for them in use of social media in mobilizing people. The invention and popularity of Facebook and Twitter helped young Arabs bypass communications controlled by their dictators.

Even if this U.S.-funded training in creating political parties, electioneering, communication and media training only reached a small portion of the population, is it any wonder that English-speaking, elite, urban Arabs took to Facebook and Twitter to help overthrow dictators? Yes, there were local grievances and the uprisings were homegrown. The Arab uprisings belong to the Arab youth. But they were also responding by using modern technology to amplify the mood music of Western belief that Arabs too could create free societies. They were not an exception.

Why else were Arab protesters' attention focused on the Obama White House as they demanded the president call on Mubarak to depart? As Turkey pressured the White House to oppose Mubarak, Saudi Arabia pressured Obama to support Mubarak -- and in that way the uprisings revolved to some degree around the messages sent from the U.S. government.

The Arab Spring was going to happen with or without Saddam Hussein, but it would not have happened had it not been for the attacks of September 11. In fact, in many ways the Iraq War has prevented more from being done to aid the uprisings, hindering global resolve in attending to the killing fields of the full-blown civil war in Syria.

It is the ghost of Iraq that prevents the U.S. from leading attempts to topple the brutal Assad regime in Damascus. Regime change has consequences, as we learned in Iraq. There will be no new commitments to "nation build" again, or re-train police and security forces in a far off Arab land.

The sectarianism, tribalism, Jihadism, border skirmishes and threat of chemical weapons use in Syria reminds U.S. policymakers of the American and Arab blood and treasure sacrificed in Iraq. And to what avail?

The ongoing loss of life in Syria is a direct result of U.S. foreign policy blunders in Iraq. Syrians are the victims of America's Iraq adventure. So as we ponder the last decade and current Arab uprisings, let us not gloat about the "success" of Iraq. Iraq is not a success. It is now an ally of Iran, home to a prime minister who persecutes his own political opposition, and unashamedly supports the Assad regime in Syria. Egyptians, Yemenis, Libyans, and Tunisians were not inspired by America in Iraq.